Goodall Mansion going on the auction block

Thursday

Dec 27, 2012 at 3:15 AM

By Ellen w. ToddSanford News Writer

SANFORD — The Goodall Mansion is scheduled to go up for auction next month.

The 29-room home — sometimes called “the jewel of Sanford” — will be sold at auction on Jan. 17, 2013, according to a legal notice that appeared recently in a daily newspaper, unless something happens to change that course of events.

“I think it’s our last chance to get the mansion and to save it,” Sanford resident Joe Doiron said last week.

Doiron is part of a small group of local residents who are trying to do something to save the historic building, not only because it is historically and architecturally significant, but also because it is an important part of Sanford’s heritage.

“I think the Goodall family has done a lot of positive things for Sanford, (and) this would be a way of giving back to the family,” Doiron said in a Dec. 20 interview with the Sanford News.

The mansion, built on Main Street in 1871, was the home of Sanford industrialist and philanthropist Thomas Goodall and his descendants for nearly 130 years. The Goodall family’s contributions to the town and the people of Sanford gives the house a significant place in Sanford’s history and in the hearts of many who grew up here.

Thomas Goodall arrived in Sanford in 1867 and built textile mills here that transformed the town into one of the most important textile centers in the country. When he died in 1910, Sanford’s population had grown from 2,400 residents to 9,000, a third of whom were employed at the Goodall Mills.

Thomas Goodall, his sons and their descendants were not just employers; they were also generous philanthropists. They built Sanford’s first library, established two banks here, and brought in a trolley system. In the early 1900s, the family built Goodall Park and Bauneg Beg Country Club and contributed 60 percent of the cost of building a new town hall. Their legacy also includes the hospital, the town’s current library and the parish hall of the Sanford Unitarian Universalist Church.

Although the Goodall textile mills closed more than 50 years ago, the family’s legacy lives on.

In 1975, the Goodall Mansion was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1995, Ruth Goodall Pitstick (the last Goodall descendant to be born with the Goodall name) and her husband Virgil gave the mansion to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The house is described as a “significant example of second empire/colonial revival architecture in Maine,” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The house was remodeled in the colonial revival style in 1909; much of the exterior trim was removed from the house’s facade and a porch was added. Thomas’s son Ernest inherited the mansion in 1910. A photograph taken around 1915 shows the mansion much as it appears today.

The house has eight bedrooms, a grand stairway, detailed woodwork, built-in cupboards and cabinets, and historic kitchen and bathroom features. The 2.8-acre property includes a garage and a caretaker’s house and is in the heart of downtown Sanford. There are protective easements in place through the National Trust that ensure the house’s historic and architectural integrity will be preserved.

A local builder purchased the mansion in 2001, and he and his partner began to renovate it, but in April of 2009 foreclosure proceedings on the property began.

“It has to be saved this time around,” Doiron said. “Now is the time to do it.”

Doiron put together a group of people a few years ago when it became apparent that the mansion was beginning to fall into disrepair. They talked about how the mansion and its grounds could be used by the community, envisioning its future as a cultural center and performance place.

Doiron said he would like to see it as a place where preservationists and craftsmen could pass on their skills and expertise to others while restoring the mansion. Once it has been restored, it could continue to be used as a teaching resource as well as a cultural center and meeting space and could also be rented for weddings and other small functions, he said.

The cost is a stumbling block. Doiron said he had an estimate three years ago of about $110,000 just to stabilize the building.

“We’re looking at about $500,000 to get it ready and operational,” he said.

Doiron said he plans to hold a meeting in the next two weeks to determine if there is enough interest in the community to try to purchase the mansion.

“I think people will jump in,” he said. “This is an opportunity that can’t be passed up.”